Risotto and Roses
by ultrafreakyfangirl
Summary: Some sweet Natalie/Vanessa bonding time. Shared interests, and all that.


**_Author's Note: I'm back! It's been what? Mere hours? You guys are all going to get sick of me, soon. I realized that I've written predominately from Natalie's perspective lately – maybe because I find it more natural to be in her head – and wanted to change that up a bit. So, hopefully I did Joe justice. Let me know. I was tempted by the thought of some Natalie/Vanessa bonding and so this fic was born! "Risotto and Roses" _**

…

Joe didn't think there was a point of terrible parenting that could be reached. Really, he didn't. Sure, not all people deserved to be parents, and not all people parented properly, whether that means neglect, or abuse, and anyway, if they did either of those things, his opinion was that they fell into the underserving category.

Terrible parenting in the sense he was thinking was different than that. It was like not force-feeding your child vegetables and letting them have chocolate for dinner instead or letting them go five days without a bath because getting them to want one was nearly impossible and trying to wrestle them in without screaming and tears was yet also _impossible._

None of these things were going to get CPS on their asses, but still, none of these things were at a standard of _A plus parenting._ It was more like _A for effort,_ and honestly, after having a six-year-old dragging at his heels for the past month and a half, he was starting to believe that the gap between the two wasn't all that big. _Non-existent,_ was a better term.

But yet, when he walked into the house after being stuck in meeting after meeting to allocate the resources for the Poussey Washington Fund, he was tempted to rescind his earlier statement. There was a gap. And that point, that point of terrible parenting he said could not be reached, was definitely reached.

He walked in the front door to find his six-year-old foster daughter on the couch with his girlfriend, talking whisperingly amongst themselves over the sound of the television. On that television, in sixty-inch, plasma high definition, was a finely sculpted man, he could even tell through his tux, talking ostensibly to the camera. Below the shot of him was a banner that read his name –_ Alex _– Occupation – _Professional Child_ (what the…fuck?) and Age – _25 _(okay, that last one started to make a little bit more sense).

From what he can hear, Alex is talking about wanting so badly to find love, and to find it with _this one girl – she's the one for me, I can feel it. _There was no way that this was happening right now. _No way_ was Natalie letting Vanessa watch _The Bachelor._ He had to stop this. What ideas was this going to give her about the future and dating? Does it promote polyamory? Polygamy? Not that he's against it, but _does it?_

He needs to know. Vanessa does not. He was going to stop this, he was intent on marching up to them, taking the remote from in between them on the cushions, and turning it off, right then. But then he could hear the two of them talking.

He'd shut the door and eclipsed the noise of the outside traffic – when they'd picked this house, being on one of the busier streets hadn't bugged them, but when Vanessa moved in, she started to complain about cars revving their engines at dumb hours of the night, and these days it pissed him off too. He must be getting old.

"I think Alex deserves a rose. He has a great connection with JoJo – and he's so sweet!"

"No, I totally think so too. And he was a Marine, so you know he can kick some ass when its warranted."

He watched as Natalie put a hand over her mouth and looked to Vanessa to see if she'd noticed her slip. She had. "Sorry. I'm not used to…having a kid around."

Vanessa shook her head and lightly tapped Natalie's wrist in assurance. "I've heard worse."

_I've heard worse._ Never in his life was that sentence going to be easier to hear coming from that little girl, six-years-old and still trying to get her footing in this big, wide, wayside world. She'd been on eggshells for the entirety of her life, living in fear, afraid that if it wasn't something she was going to hear, it would be something she was going to _feel._

He and Natalie weren't naive, children were placed in social services for domestic situations regularly, and Vanessa was no exception.

In the month they've had her with them, her bruises were starting to fade, less purple, more yellow, but the image he knew would forever stick with him was a particularly dark and swollen patch of skin of her inner thigh; he hadn't meant to see it, Vanessa had been wearing a pair of shorts that day, and when she crossed her legs on the carpet, they rode up slightly.

She'd noticed right away and pulled them down, and it struck him that this little girl was so aware of her body, of herself, and that hadn't come from a good school education. As far as they knew, Vanessa hadn't been officially enrolled into the first grade, before they had gotten her. It was like fucking _Matilda._

"Hey there, you two," Joe greeted, finally leaving his alcove in the doorway where he had been hovering.

He kissed Natalie on the head, and went to do the same to Vanessa, until he thought better of it and ruffled her hair instead. Boundaries were tedious, especially in this stage, and the last thing Joe wanted to do was overstep with an unwarranted physical touch.

She'd shown to be comfortable with the hair thing though, so it's what he stuck with, though he always found himself holding his breath when he would ever try something new with her, at her own accord first, whether that be hugging her for an extra few seconds or squeezing her hand. It was tough, and there had been, on occasions, panic and outbursts when he'd touched her arm or her leg without her expecting it first, but he knew that it was going to be, so that was no surprise.

What also was, was what he was seeing here and now. Vanessa had always been slightly more hesitant with him, but it was Natalie who had been slightly more hesitant and awkward with her. Though that wasn't the case right now, apparently, and even if it was through watching some tarty, exploitive show about _love _he decided right then that he would take it. Natalie deserved to feel like she could one day fit into Vanessa's life as someone important, as a guardian, as a _mother._ And if this was her way to break the ice, he wouldn't take that from her.

"What are you watching?"

Vanessa turned to him, eyes smiling. "_The Bachelorette._"

Ah, so it wasn't _The Bachelor_, but rather a spin-off, or sequel or subversive role-reversal. How many of those shows are there?

"Natalie showed it to me. She was telling me that there is this thing…fanbase…called Bachelor Nation and that it's made up of all the people everywhere that watch this show. And there's more than one you know. There's three. Right, Natalie?"

Natalie was smiling at her, and she looked _so happy_ to be sharing in something with Vanessa, and it was pulling on his heart like nothing else had before.

"Yeah, you got it_. The Bachelor,_ which is the boy choosing between the girls, _The Bachelorette_ – "

"– with the girl choosing between the boys."

"And _Bachelor in Paradise_."

Vanessa looked at Joe again, poised to explain. "Which is basically like _Big Brother_…well, no, not really, they're on a beach not in a house, and there's no competitions and stuff, but still…" she rubbed her hands together. "drama!"

Joe raised his eyebrows and chuckled. "Hold on. You know what _Big Brother_ is, too?"

Vanessa shrugged. "There were some older girls who roomed with me. I was bored."

Natalie raised her eyebrows at him, a laugh on the tip of her tongue and he shrugged.

"Okay well – "

"– wait, Joe, _sh!_ It's back on!"

Joe laughed. He couldn't help it. He would let the fact that it was rude behavior they shouldn't be condoning go for a minute, because right then, that little girl sounded so much like Natalie, even in the inflection of her voice on those words, that it made his heart stop for a second. One look at his girlfriend and he could see that she felt it too.

"We can pause it, Nessa. Here, hold on."

Natalie fought to get the remote from between the couch cushions and once she managed, she pressed the button and some attractive brunette girl's face froze on the screen, wearing a silver cocktail dress. He assumed she was the leading lady this season.

Joe couldn't help but notice that Vanessa didn't bristle at the nickname, and by the subtle way she leaned into Natalie's side without yet physically molding her body to hers, was likely indicative of something. They were getting closer. They were breaking through. And it felt so damn good.

He could see that Natalie noticed too but refused to make a big show of it. He knew that later, she'd be talking excitedly at him about the whole thing, which was new for her, new since Vanessa, new, since the prospect of motherhood. It was cute as hell.

"Do you two girls want pizza for dinner? Or should I try my hand at a orzo risotto?"

Vanessa crinkled her nose in response. "What's that?"

"It's a pasta dish, honey. It's really yummy, I promise," Natalie told her. "Do you like Mac and Cheese?"

Vanessa gasped. "Obviously. Who doesn't like Mac and Cheese!?"

Natalie smiled at her. "Crazy people, that's who. If you like Mac and Cheese, you'll probably like this."

"Hm…" Vanessa was thinking it over, looking from Natalie to Joe, and back again. Her gaze settled on Natalie. "Okay. I'll trust you. It better taste like Mac and Cheese."

Joe's breaths became stuck in his throat, and he struggled to get any words out in answer. _I'll trust you._ Sure, it was meant as a flippant remark without any actual leverage, but somehow, he sensed that it really did mean something more. And that everything was riding on this risotto. _She trusted them._

"Okay, well, I'll get right on that, then. You two girls enjoy your show."

"We will!" Vanessa called back, because by then he was already out of the room and halfway to the kitchen.

"One second, honey," he could hear Natalie talking to Vanessa again. "I just want to go talk to Joe for a minute, to make sure he's putting enough yummy stuff in that risotto."

He heard her voice slip into a bit of a joking tone, then, and he heard Vanessa's response. "Good idea. Should we pause it?"

"No, that's okay. You keep watching and just tell me what I miss."

Clearly, Vanessa didn't have any qualms about that particular arrangement because he heard the muted sounds of the television from the kitchen still, even though Natalie was suddenly behind him, her arms around his waist, her chest pressed against his back.

"Hey," she murmured, kissing where his spine protruded most, and he reached his hand to tug lightly on her hair.

"Hey."

"I just wanted – "

"You're doing great with her," Joe interrupted as he stirred the pasta in the pot of boiling water.

"Well, I'm trying," she said, hugging him a little tighter. "Sharing interests and all that. But now that I think of it…I saw your face when you walked in the door and saw what we were watching – you didn't approve."

He turned his back on the pasta, hoping he wouldn't live to regret that later as he tries to scrape burnt marks off the bottom of the pot, and gripped her hips.

"Nat, it's not that I didn't approve. I was just surprised. Stuff like that may not – "

"Be appropriate for a six-year-old. I know. But you heard her. She's watched _Big Brother._ She knows all of the swear words, and she's _heard worse._ I figured for all the real-life, fucked up shit she's probably been exposed to in her short six-years thus far, a little reality TV about finding love with a bunch of hunky shirtless men wouldn't hurt her."

He sighed. She did too. "I don't think it will either. She's not your typical six-year-old. She knows way too many songs about sex and drugs for my comfort level." He chuckled. "But that's okay. Because she's ours. Will be, if she wants to be, and I love that about her."

Natalie raised an eyebrow. There were tears in her eyes. "You just said _love. _Do you love her?"

Joe sighed, his voice chalked with emotion, "Yeah. I think I'm starting to…you?"

She looked down at the floor for a beat, then back up at him. He knew that she hated when he _tried to predict her feelings. _"Yeah."

He held her chin and tipped it towards him, and she reached up slightly and pressed her lips to his, and for a second their kiss was full, deep_, hopeful._

"Natalie!" he heard Vanessa call from the living room. "Come on, you're going to miss the rose ceremony! Ha, all the boys look like they're gonna shit themselves."

Joe laughed. He couldn't help it, and she did too, and with their lips still touching, they both swallowed the sound. He felt her reluctantly separate from him and opened his eyes to see her stepping back. She was grinning.

"I guess I gotta go."

"And tell her to maybe not use the phrase _'shit themselves'"_

She chuckled, and he continued on. "_I _think it's adorable, but her first grade teacher and the parents of her six-year-old school buddies might not."

"Will do. Hey."

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

He matched her grin. "I love you too. Now go appease our daughter and watch Chris Harrison say his famous _'if you didn't receive a rose tonight, it's time to say your goodbyes.'" _

She full on laughed now. "Wow. You actually pay attention when I force you to sit down with me Monday nights, don't you?"

Joe grumbled in response. He was caught. And she knew that, too, so she granted him mercy and changed the subject.

"You said _our daughter_ just now. Like we're a family."

"Well we are. A family. And Nat, I wouldn't want my life to be any other way."

She gave him a small, subdued kind of smile. He could tell she'd had almost enough vulnerability for the night.

"Me neither."

…

**_Author's Note: What did you guys think? I always love hearing from my readers! Until next time! Xx_**


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